Birth - 10/25/2019

As stated in the breeding announcement (click above on "more about the parents" if you didn't see this), this is the second litter approved for the COA & UKC's official Chinook Breed Conservation Program! The father is a Bernese Mountain Dog (BMD) and the mother a Chinook. We were very excited for these puppies to be born and see what they would look like. Zazu, being nothing but consistent, wanted to make sure this litter had something to do with Christmas (her first litter was born on 12/26), and this litter will be going home right before Christmas. This time our theme is Kristy's favorite book series ever (and now Jon's since he decided to read the series because it was the first set of books Kristy ever bought (she's a library geek) so they must have been an awesome story right?!?!). So now we present to you the Throne of Glass Litter!

Zazu actually had started out pretty easy with puppy #1. That is always the hardest puppy to birth and this one came out so quickly and easily. There was an hour and a half break before puppy #2 and #3 popped out within ten minutes of each other. Then repeat the timing for puppy #4 and #5. Kristy and Jon's mom (who was our helper this year) decided to take a nap since the pattern showed an hour and a half break. Jon whelped puppy #6 on his own while they were sleeping... but then Zazu stopped contractions. We've been through this before on Kyra's second litter, so we weren't too concerned, but it wasn't anything like that time (why do we assume that... things with breeding never go the same!). We called our reproductive vet and although open, the repro doctor wasn't in so we ended up at an emergency pet hospital instead. Not feeling the most comfortable, waiting more time than necessary, the oxytoxin shots didn't work, so a c-section was required. Jon and Kristy were nervous and sad, not the way we wanted this to go. Fortunately Zazu and her remaining 3 puppies (Kristy's puppy count was right at 9!) came out alright on the other side, what a relief.

We were told we'd have to feed & help the puppies with their bathroom breaks for a few days while Zazu recovered, but she would have none of that! She is a SUPER MOM and fed them, and bathed them, and didn't want them out of her sight for even a moment, all while recovering from her own surgery. She ate well and slept well and is healing very nicely. Even when she leaves the whelping box, we haven't had to "save" a puppy from being squished once! (I can't say that for another dog we have... cough Kyra cough... who we've had to save practically every single puppy she had - "what's that lump under me is squealing... weird.") I can't be more proud of Zazu and her puppies right now! And their markings are way cool. Many have the BMD blaze down the face. All have white toes on two or four feet and a white patch of varying sizes on their chests. Each puppy had a 50% chance of being a black and tan, and we got five of them (I guess you could say tri-color due to the white as well). We can't wait to see what they will look like as they grow.

And now to talk about our fun theme! The Throne of Glass book series by Sarah Maas is 7 books with a prequel, and there's between 600-900 pages each book. The genre is fantasy and you get it all: assassins, magic, faes, witches, magical creatures, shape shifters, queens & kings, pirates, etc. The reason why Kristy loves the book is because the characters are all gray- there is no absolute good and absolute evil. Your heroines and heroes are not all good and are very human in the way they deal with things and the emotions are realistic. There's character building all the time, no character is one dimensional- and there are so many stories, it's not just about the heroine but ALL the main characters, with plenty of action and general planning and relationship building in the meantime.

We will be keeping a puppy from this litter and so we chose one of the main characters that appears in book 3 as the name of our next puppy: Aelin (whoever we keep will have their name changed to this). The puppies are named after most of the main characters in her group. It was fun matching the names to the puppies after they were all born so we could match their markings or looks to the characters. We posed them with the book color to match their collar color (the books are not listed in order, it's by birth order). Their animal toys are arriving so next week we'll introduce their meanings then. The background was chosen because of the stag and even the greenish color, which the white stag is the house crest and green is the color of Terrasen, which is Aelin's kingdom. So while you are waiting for cute pupdates each week, why not start reading the Throne of Glass in the meantime?!?! :)

So now, the moment you've all been waiting for, we would like to introduce the puppies of the Throne of Glass litter, in order of appearance: